I'll learn to get by / on the little victories

So this afternoon I got an email from my employers asking if I can increase my hours to 30 per week.

Good news, but it has not come easily - there was a lot of... negotiation... recently, as expectations were adjusted and they had to undestand that while I work hard, they had to accept that a) I was not going to work extra hours for free because of my belief in the cause and b) you don't get 40 hours' worth of output on 20 hours' worth of pay. NGO staff are notoriously vulnerable to abuse and I knew I had to draw some lines. So we've done a little employer-employee dance of push and stand; and today they increased my hours.

I am still looking aggressively at other jobs because it is clear to me that it's time to move on in any case. I want to stay in multiculturalism/immigration and am focusing my efforts on that (happily there is a big push right now in my province to recruit immigrants and/or lure them away from MTV - Montreal, Vancouver and Toronto :) - so there are a number of avenues to pursue.

I'm really excited about going to a very special wedding tomorrow. I don't know if I've actually made this connection in the weblog before, but my co-worker, "Ariel", who helped me so much when I first went deaf, is actually the partner of my ASL instructor, "Charles". Tomorrow, they are getting married.

It's my first deaf wedding and I can't wait to see and hear the vows and to go to the reception. I'll be back with a full report on Sunday or so.

Yvonne - you are a 24-carat gold person and I will email you as soon as I am able. For the moment, just know that your comments lift me up more than you know and I think you are absolutely brilliant for finding a humane solution to what I had begun thinking of as "The Squirrel Portfolio", as if it were a John Le Carré novel.

ronnie